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Painting Tips For Walls With A Fireplace

Date Published:

November 16th, 2016

Interior brick, whether in the form of a fireplace or an exposed wall, can either make or break a homeowner’s decorative scheme. The reason behind this is how brick walls usually make spaces seem smaller and darker.

Fortunately, you can transform an old-looking fireplace with new paint and some molding. Here are a few easy and relatively inexpensive tips to help you get started.

Pick a color scheme

When people start painting walls with a fireplace, they usually go with colors such as red or brown that seems comfy at a glance, but this can end up clashing with your fireplace color and make a part of your house looking like a tacky mess. The first thing you should do is pick out color schemes- for your wall and fireplace both. If you’re aiming for the old, classy look then you can leave the brick showing in the wall and color the walls with something that goes with this color, such as a cream color. These days, modern colors such as gray and white are extremely popular. The most important thing for pleasing the visuals would be to make sure all the colors go with each other.

Paint the fireplace black for a sleek look

When painting the fireplace, choosing the color black can make your interiors look classy and sleek and will help you cut out on spending on the fireplace in the long run. Black goes with any color- white, gray, beige, deep red- you name it. If you painted it a color other than black, then you might have to repaint it more frequently as the ash and creosote will show up on lighter colors. However, with black, it won’t show up at all and so it will make your fireplace looking new and high-end as well.

Use a flame retardant top coat

Fire safety is important whether it’s just your home or workplace you’re decorating. Therefore, you need to take all the preventive measures possible. Fireplace recesses can’t have anything combustible in them so make sure you use special fire-resistant versions of the board and skim. Painting the recess creates additional problems. The area immediately surrounding your fire will get hot when the fire is in use. This will discolor normal paints and eventually cause them to crack, flake and peel off the surface. Using heat resistant paint may be an option but these paints are usually only available in black or silver. Furthermore, these paints and conventional paints aren’t fire retardant. The best thing you can do is to use a flame retardant top coat. These will ensure your safety while maintaining the aesthetics as well.

Protect your floors and furniture while painting

Painting areas around the fireplace can get a bit messy. You don’t want the paint to get onto your carpet, your sofas or even on the floor. If it does, it’ll leave your house looking unfinished or even dirty, and you might have to spend a lot getting rid of the paint on other surfaces than walls. The best thing to do would be covering your furniture with drop cloths and your floor around your fireplace with newspaper. If you have a carpet laying around, you should make sure you put it away as it can be a hassle to cover it.

Painting it so it stays

If the paint around your fireplace looks like it’s peeling or cracked or simply old, it could be that you’ve been painting it wrong. Once you’ve chosen the color scheme of the wall and fireplace, make sure to apply stain-blocking masonry primer that will ensure proper adhesion of the top coat and protect against flaking down the road. Also, make sure that the edges around the fireplace are completely primed. After doing this, you should use a paint roller to cover the rest of the surface for a smooth finish.

Use appropriate brushes & paint

After the primer has fully dried, you should begin painting the wall with a water based acrylic paint. Again, if you are planning on lighting any fires in the fireplace, be sure to use a paint that can withstand temperatures of around 200 degrees. Use a paint roller for larger areas of the wall and a smaller brush for the perimeter of the wall and small corners. Depending on the color of the wall originally, you may have to paint additional coats to achieve the desired color.

With these handy tips, you’ll have a beautiful fireplace that’ll impress everyone.